The perception of Islam as a monolith was favoured by the so-called clash of civilisations.
Islam never was one and never be except in the dreamed Uma, the Community of the Believers.
By structure, Islam is poly, is multiple.
There is one God but no Pope.
If you have studied the Koran, had developed a doctrine which is followed by a lot a people then you are a Doctor, an Imam.
Of course, you have the immediate distinction between Sunnites and Shiites.
Each streams being divided in few branches.
The Islamist faith goes from Sufism (humanism and spirituality) to the Political Islamism (or Islamofacism) which referred to Jihad and martyrdom.
Al Qaeda belongs to the last one but is not the owner of the brand.
The Saudi branch is a legalist branch of the Political Islamism thanks to the Wahhabism, union of the sword and the book wanted by 2 men in 1774, Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Mohammed ibn Sa'ud.
It is important to know that this branch took the Holly Place of Islam by force (1924, Abd el-Aziz conquered the Mecca, in 1932, he took Medina).
The original guardians of the Faith were the Hashemite…
You have as well more “western” approach of religion, where the Doctor of the Faith have historical approach to the faith and have a more intellectual analyse of the texts (Hijtihab).
Now, the problem is the Reformation of the Muslim religion is in the fact most of the Muslim considered the words of the books as the words of Good, given to Mohamed by Gabriel so it can't be changed.
If you compare with the New Testament, all Christians know it was written by Paul, John or others. In fact, none of the texts was written by Jesus himself. That gave to the Christian place for adaptation, especially when the knowledge, the Revelations are in fact translation of translation of text written at least 30 years after the events…
The infallibility of Koran supposed “words of God” poses the crucial problem of the absolute authority of the holly text, so what about of the totalitarian aspects when certain verses of the Koran are in total contradiction with the Human rights?
To succeed in adapting the Muslim Faith, a reformation, you have to convince illiterate Mullah who barely knows 5 lines of the text that they have to stop to think the Koran but to study it.![]()
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